Between of Dimensions
by Tell-Me-Tales
Summary: There are some places in the multiverse that the human race was never meant to be. Fiddleford McGucket can attest to the fact that what lays beyond the portal is just such a place. [Nightmare Realm][Two-Shot][AO3 CrossPost]
1. Fragmented

**Dimension 0  
** **Gravity Falls, OR  
** **February 22, 1982**

"Stan! Stanley! Help me!"

Terror. Terror so thick he can't _think_.

The portal roars behind him, perverting gravity, twisting spacetime, opening the door to horrors beyond human comprehension.

"Stanley! Do something! STANLEY!"

He doesn't know what he expects Stan to do. It's already too late, but desperation argues that there must be _something_ that can be done.

Then he remembers.

 _'The first journal! I still have it!'_

And it changes his priorities.

 _'I can't let it be lost with me! It's too important!'_

Ford flings the precious book as far away as he can. Maybe it will be enough. Maybe it can still be used to fix some of his mistakes.

Light engulfs him.

* * *

 **Dimension 1  
** **Somewhere and Nowhere  
** **Time is an Illusion**

He looks but the image before his eyes twists and writhes in impossible ways. He tries to listen but his ears can hear nothing over the laughter in his head and the screaming in his heart. He wants to move but he can't. There's something latching onto his legs, holding him down, or maybe there's nothing at all and he's just forgotten how to move them. He can no longer be certain. Common and physical senses are all suddenly unreliable. Or perhaps they have always been? He does not know.

There is still something. Something that he needs to do. It is important. Terribly so. But he can't think! What is it? What is it? What? What? WHA-

 _Glasses._

The thought drifts beneath the frenzied panic for a moment before it rises above the mad laughter and he remembers. His final gambit. It will not save him now - not now, should have thought sooner - but it may still be able to save his dimension.

Ford fumbles, normally nimble fingers made clumsy - or maybe it is his _mind_ that has become clumsy - by the way reality is folding in on itself, but he manages to grab hold of his glasses in both hands. His body betrays him and finds the little buttons hidden in the metal frame too soon. He isn't ready, but that changes nothing.

He focuses on the light he fell through. The portal is a bright, shining beacon in this otherwise senseless plane. It promises salvation from the surrounding insanity already digging its claws into his fragile human mind. It is a beautiful lie. It needs to be destroyed. There is no other recourse left.

Ford fights to concentrate through the confusion pressing in on him. He pulls his arm back, throws his glasses at the vortex, and hopes that his aim will be true.

For a moment, nothing seems to happen and there is _fear, panic, too late, not enough, usele_ -

The moment passes.

The portal begins to expand violently only to immediate implode instead, winking out of being entirely.

The laughter in his head changes to enraged screeching. It is not just him to whom the portal promised salvation. His heart begins to sing in triumph even as his body shivers in fear. Even though he is lost, he has still _won_. His home remains out of the demon's reach.

With the distraction of his task now spent, it isn't long before the madness begins to affect him even more strongly than before. Worse, he can _feel_ his sanity being torn from him. Rational thought is soon beyond him as the Between of Dimensions takes him for one of its own.

He's afraid and ecstatic. This is everything he's worked for and against. All the worlds are in front of him and yet lost to him. He knows everything in this moment but it's too much, Too Much, TOO MUCH! - and so he is blinded with the knowledge until he knows nothing at all.

This plane of existence - It does not exist! It is neither possible nor real! It is absence! It is the Between! - will destroy him. No human should be here. His mind is breaking, fragmenting under the strain. He is lost. He is damned. He is nothing.

Light engulfs him.

* * *

 **Dimension 2  
** **Gravity Falls, OR  
** **April 17, 1989**

"Stanford? ... No. No, you're not him. You're not my brother. You're some other Stan's twin, aren't you?"

* * *

 **Read the entire Dimension 0/297 series on Archive of Our Own:** **archiveofourown dot org slash series slash 457846**

 **Read the entire** **Travels and Journals** **series on Archive of Our Own: archiveofourown dot org slash series slash 543127**


	2. First Entry

**Dimension 2  
** **Gravity Falls, OR  
** **April 27, 1989**

Stanford Filbrick Pines is lost to his dimension. There is a very real possibility that he will never see it again. In fact, it is far more likely than the slim chance he has of ever finding his way home. The multiverse is infinite, after all, and he currently lacks a way to transverse dimensions at all.

However, after ten days spent recovering from the Between's influence, he is no longer lost to himself.

When he finds the extra, empty journals left behind by this dimension's Stanford Pines, he doesn't hesitate to take one for his own use. There's no sense in letting a perfectly good journal go to waste, after all. ...Even if it is backward from what he's used to. This world seems to be predominantly left-handed.

Ford skips the first couple of pages. He prefers to have a few pages left blank at either end of his journals, just in case he needs to record something important in a place he can find quickly later.

He stares at the empty page for a long time before he begins to write:

* * *

 _Dimension 1_  
 _The Between of Dimensions_

 _I will not be able to properly describe this dimension. I do not believe any human being would be able to. The entire dimension is an eldritch abomination beyond any human's hope to comprehend. Perhaps it is not even a dimension at all. I find myself conflicted on the proper classification of such a plane of... I hesitate to say "existence." I am certain that it IS, but not that it EXISTS. Not as we humans understand such concepts, at any rate. I have a vague thought that the plane is not a dimension in and of itself so much as it is the space separating other dimensions. Regardless, for the sake of simplicity and my own sanity - such as it may be at this point - I shall refer to this phenomenon as the "Between."_

 _Less than five seconds exposure to the Between affected Fiddleford greatly, and I was unable to understand until I myself was left at its mercies. I do not know how long I was stranded in Between before I was saved. Time was without meaning there. All of reality seemed to bend back on top of itself: time, space, sense, thought, everything. It has been over a week - ten days, or so I have been told - since I was accidentally pulled from Between, and I continue to feel its effects. I am uncertain if I shall ever be fully free of Between's touch._

 _Setting aside the intellectual curiosity Between inspires, I am afraid this is one subject of study that even I cannot condone further research on. It's simply too dangerous for mortal man to trifle with. It may not possess a desire to invade and destroy other dimensions, but opening doorways of study to Between may well lead to that same outcome. It is impossible to travel or even view other planes without creating a tear of some kind in the walls of reality responsible for keeping all dimensions separate. Such activities lead to a dimensional bleeding effect - which neatly explains the Weirdness that permeates the Gravity Falls of my own dimension - and I fear what would happen to a dimension should a gateway to Between be left open for too long._

* * *

The pen hovers uncertainly over the page for a moment before it is withdrawn. There are some things that may be best left unrecorded. The full extent of Between and its effects on that which dares to breach its boundaries is perhaps one of those things.

Ford shudders. He can only hope future entries in this new journal will be the result of more pleasant experiences.

* * *

 **Read the entire Dimension 0/297 series on Archive of Our Own:** **archiveofourown dot org slash series slash 457846**

 **Read the entire** **Travels and Journals** **series on Archive of Our Own: archiveofourown dot org slash series slash 543127**


End file.
